abstract: The purpose of this research was to understand the migration process as experienced by unaccompanied immigrant minors (UIMs). That is, to form a better understanding of why they seek migration, what motivates their migration, what happens to them on their migration journey, and how they adapt to their new communities in the United States. Using qualitative research methods, 60 semi-structured in-depth interviews were collected, along with 12 ethnographic interviews, and participant observations. The immigrants’ narratives were rich with data, and capture the plight that UIMs undertake as they leave their home countries. This study analyzes the dynamic of age in all facets of the migration process, by taking into account that children are participants of the migration process just as much as adults. The dissertation generated several findings; the first was to provide a profile of an Unaccompanied Minor, and for the sake of the study, only participants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala were interviewed. From those interviewed, we learned that UIMs are a heterogeneous group. They come from diverse backgrounds in terms of household structures; (nuclear family structures, single-parent structures, extended-family structures, and migrant-family structures). Also, education levels varied; (some finished elementary or even secondary school, but for those living in rural areas it was harder to attend school due to the distance and availability of educational facilities). Many also worked in the labor force from an early age. One salient theme that UIMs talked about in relation to their home life was how the increase in violence in many Latin American countries was threatening their safety, especially for UIMs from El Salvador and Honduras. The next major finding was the ability to see the multiple stages UIMs experience, including: initiation/decisions to migrate, journey, arrival/adaptation and what takes place in each of these stages. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sociology 2016

abstract: The Legacy of the Filibuster War: National Identity, Collective Memory, and Cultural Anti-Imperialism is a dissertation project analyzing how the Filibuster War becomes a staple for Costa Rican national identity. This work presents several challenges to traditional theories of modernization in the creation of nationalism. By focusing on the development of cultural features defined by the transformation of collective memory, this project argues that national identity is a dynamic process defined according to local, national, and international contexts. Modernization theories connect the development of nationalism to the period of consolidation of the nation-state, usually during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The Costa Rican case demonstrates that, while modernization coincides with the creation of symbols of official nationalism, the Filibuster War became a symbol of national identity beginning in the 1850s, and it has been changing throughout the twentieth century. Threats to sovereignty and imperialist advances served to promote the memory of the Filibuster War, while local social transformations, as the abolition of the army and internal political conflict forced drastic changes on the interpretation of the war and the establishment of a national narrative that adjusts to social transformation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. History 2013

La fin du XXe siècle et le début du XXIe siècle ont vu renaître le débat sur les rapports entre l’histoire et la littérature, entendue comme fiction, dans le sens d'un effacement des frontières entre les deux. Partant de ce postulat, notre étude, à la croisée de ces deux notions, a pour objectif de montrer les liens qui existent entre l’histoire centraméricaine contemporaine et la fiction dans les romans de l’auteur honduro-salvadorien Horacio Castellanos Moya. En effet, l’histoire de plusieurs pays d’Amérique centrale, marquée par des années de dictature, de guerres civiles et de violences politiques ou économiques, a eu un impact considérable sur de nombreux auteurs de la région. L’œuvre fictionnelle de Horacio Castellanos Moya en porte des traces évidentes. Pour les déceler, comprendre leurs enjeux et la manière dont elles figurent dans les romans, l’étude a été divisée en trois grandes parties. La première traite les données biographiques de Horacio Castellanos Moya en tant qu’homme et écrivain ; la deuxième, des principaux faits historiques thématisés et la dernière de leur mise en scène dans l’œuvre. / The late twentieth century and early twenty-first century have seen revived the debate about the relationship between history and literature, understood as fiction, in the sense of a blurring of boundaries between the two. Based on this premise, our study at the crossroads of these two concepts aims to show the links between contemporary Central American history and fiction in novels of Honduras-Salvadoran author Horacio Castellanos Moya. Indeed, the history of several Central American countries, marked by years of dictatorship, civil wars and political or economic violence has had a significant impact on many local authors. The fictional work of Horacio Castellanos Moya bears evident traces. To identify, understand their issues and how they appear in the novels, the study was divided into three main parts. The first deals with the biographical data Horacio Castellanos Moya as man and writer; the second, the main historical facts themed and the last of their stage in the work.

In this work, I explain that the focus of criticism on the Central American poetry of the second half of the twentieth century has emphasized its political content. I argue, however, that such a limited view obscures the broader import of this poetry and its place in Latin American literature. By reading the work of Nicaraguan Daisy Zamora, Guatemalan Otto René Castillo, and Salvadoran Roque Dalton with an emphasis on affectivity rather than revolution, I suggest a different relationship between the poet and society, one that is not limited to the marginal figure of the mujer soldado, the poeta guerrillero or the poeta marxista in conflict with all societal norms. Rather, I argue that my study portrays the complex subjectivity of the speaker/poet not unlike that of non-revolutionary poets, as well as his or her multi-dimensional affective connections to family and society. At the same time, an analysis of affect in this poetry allows us to reconsider the nature of the revolutionary figure itself, no longer a myth or a romantic hero, but an individual inserted in society in a more complex way. In Chapter 1, “Daisy Zamora: De la mujer-soldado a la mujer-mujer”, I contend that an analysis of affectivity of her poetic work reveals how personal memory constructs an individualized subjectivity different from that of a woman-soldier. In the second chapter, “Otto René Castillo: De la lucha revolucionaria a la soledad del poema,” I argue that a negative connotation of romantic love is projected in his poems bringing about traces of existential solitude in the lyric subjectivity. Furthermore, Castillo’s poetry elicits a binary opposition between “the people” and the guerrillero in which the former is portrayed as lacking of agency. The third chapter, “Roque Dalton: y/o subjetividad en crisis,” reveals the ways in which the Salvadoran poet textualizes a poetic of disenchantment by way of projecting disdain and contempt to the “motherland.” In conclusion, my approach pinpoints how Zamora, Castillo and Dalton share the same preoccupations, affects and ways to conceive reality, which are also similar to the practices of those poets whose works are better-known given their national origin or because their poetic production has been widely studied by academia. This document has been written in Spanish. / text

Cette thèse s’intéresse aux effets de l’opposition entre les dynamiques migratoires et les dynamiques de contrôle frontalier. L’étude se centre sur le flux de migrants centraméricains à destination des États-Unis. Ce flux transite par un système de frontières formé d’une zone tampon sur l’ensemble du territoire mexicain et d’une frange érigée en rempart high-tech à la frontière sud des États-Unis. Dans cet immense espace, la frontière a créé des marges par où les migrants tentent la contourner en traversant par une économie souterraine structurée autour de l’abus aux migrants clandestins en transit. L’analyse du système migratoire d’un village des hautes terres du Guatemala montre comment le flux persiste malgré la frontière par l’action en réseau de migrants. La comparaison entre une trentaine d’expériences d’hommes et de femmes en mobilité clandestine sur la route de transit révèle que la frontière s’abat sur les acteurs dans des modalités spécifiques selon leur genre et leurs ressources sociales, économiques et de mobilité. Les migrants éprouvent la frontière comme un espace d’adversité auquel ils doivent s’adapter en permanence en l’assumant intégralement afin de pouvoir continuer leur voyage vers le lieu qu’ils imaginent au nord. Ce travail, fondé sur des enquêtes de terrain réalisées entre 2005 et 2012 dans des lieux d’origine, de transit et de destination disséminés dans l’espace migratoire, cherche à illustrer comment un flux migratoire et ses acteurs réagissent à un système frontalier contemporain. / This thesis addresses the effects of the conflict between migration dynamics and the dynamics of border enforcement. The study focuses on the flow of Central American migrants heading to the United States. This flow follows a system of borders formed by a buffer zone throughout Mexican territory and a strip of land erected as a high-tech rampart on the southern border of the United States. Across this immense space, the border has created margins that migrants try to circumvent by entering an underground economy structured around the abuse on clandestine migrants in transit. The analysis of the migratory system of a village in Guatemalan highlands shows how the migration flow persists, despite the border, through the action in network of migrants. The comparison of about thirty experiences of men and women in clandestine movements reveals that the border affects the various actors in specific ways, depending on their gender as well as their social, economic and mobility resources. Migrants experience the border as a space of adversity to which they must constantly adapt to, by assuming it integrally, in order to be able to continue their journey to the place they imagine northward. This work, based on field investigations conducted between 2005 and 20012 during different stages of the migratory process (e.g. in places of origin, transit and destination) seeks to illustrate how a migration flow and its actors react to a contemporary system of borders.

Contemporary Central American fiction has become a vital project of revision of the tragic events and the social conditions in the recent history of the countries from which they emerge. The literary projects of Sergio Ramirez (Nicaragua), Dante Liano (Guatemala), Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador), and Ramon Fonseca Mora (Panama), are representative of the latest trends in Central American narrative. These trends conform to a new literary paradigm that consists of an amalgam of styles and discourses, which combine the testimonial, the historical, and the political with the mystery and suspense of noir thrillers. Contemporary Central American noir narrative depicts the persistent war against social injustice, violence, criminal activities, as well as the new technological advances and economic challenges of the post-war neo-liberal order that still prevails throughout the region. Drawing on postmodernism theory proposed by Ihab Hassan, Linda Hutcheon and Brian MacHale, I argued that the new Central American literary paradigm exemplified by Sergio Ramirez’s El cielo llora por mí, Dante Liano’s El hombre de Montserrat, Horacio Castellanos Moya’s El arma en el hombre and La diabla en el espejo, and Ramon Fonseca Mora’s El desenterrador, are highly structured novels that display the characteristic marks of postmodern cultural expression through their ambivalence, which results from the coexistence of multiple styles and conflicting ideologies and narrative trends. The novels analyzed in this dissertation make use of a noir sensitivity in which corruption, decay and disillusionment are at their core to portray the events that shaped the modern history of the countries from which they emerge. The revolutionary armed struggle, the state of terror imposed by military regimes and the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime, are among the major themes of these contemporary works of fiction, which I have categorized as perfect examples of the post-revolutionary post-modernism Central American detective fiction at the turn of the 21st century.

Depuis 1999, l’Union européenne a inauguré une nouvelle approche dans ses relations avec l’Amérique latine et les Caraïbes. A cet égard, le premier sommet Union européenne – Amérique latine – Caraïbes, dit « sommet de Rio » marque un tournant grâce au lancement du « partenariat stratégique ». Dans ce cadre, toutes les organisations régionales d’intégration économique situées dans cette zone géographique, et non pas uniquement le MERCOSUR, apparaissent comme des partenaires importants. Le changement obéit autant à des contraintes externes qu’à une stratégie extérieure. Dans le domaine des échanges commerciaux, le but déclaré est d’atteindre « une libéralisation mutuelle des échanges » sur une base équitable et mutuellement profitable tout en défendant certaines valeurs communes. Cependant, le cadre juridique longtemps en vigueur s’est avéré inadapté à l’avènement d’une ambition économique et politique d’une telle ampleur. Par conséquent, l’Union européenne se trouve confrontée au défi de réformer les cadres juridiques de ses relations avec les organisations régionales d’intégration économique d’Amérique latine et des Caraïbes. La thèse analyse l’évolution et la restructuration actuelles des instruments juridiques des relations entre l’Union européenne l’Amérique latine et les Caraïbes. / Since 1999, the European Union began a new competitive approach in its relationships with Latin America and the Caribbean. In this respect, the first step has been made in the European Union-Latin America and Caribbean’ Summit [Rio Summit (1999)] with the launch of a new partnership called “Strategic Partnership”. In this context, all organisations of regional economic integration – not only the MERCOSUR the most competitive one – are considered as important partners. The change is due to external constraints as well as an external strategy. In the field of commercial exchanges, the goal is to attempt “mutual liberalisation of exchanges” on a fair and mutually profitable basis, defending at the same time “common values”. However, the traditional legal framework of the relations is obviously unsuitable for such an ambitious economic and political project. So, from a legal aspect, the European Union is confronted with the challenge of reforming the contractual frameworks of its relations with regional economic integrations in Latin America and in the Caribbean. The issue concerns an analysis of the evolution and restructuring of existing legal instruments of the European Union’s relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. / Desde 1999, la Unión Europea instauró un nuevo enfoque en sus relaciones con América Latina y el Caribe. En este enfoque llamado “estratégico”, todas las organiza-ciones comarcales de integración económicas ubicadas en esta zona geográfica y no úni-camente el MERCOSUR, se pueden ver como interlocutores importantes. La primera cumbre Unión Europea /América latina/Caribe (cumbre de Rio) es una fecha importante en la evolución de las relaciones gracias al lanzamiento “de la colaboración estratégica”. En lo que toca a los intercambios comerciales, la meta declarada es alcanzar una “liberalización mutual de los intercambios” a partir de una base equitativa y mutualmente provechosa de-fendiendo a la vez ciertos valores comunes. Sin embargo, el marco jurídico en vigor durante una larga temporada se ha reve-lado inadecuado para el advenimiento de una ambición económica y política de esta impor-tancia. Por consiguiente, la Unión Europea se enfrenta hoy en día al desafío jurídico de la renovación del marco convencional de sus relaciones con las organizaciones de integración económica de América Latina y del Caribe. El asunto se refiere a un análisis de las rela-ciones exteriores de la Unión Europea desde el punto de vista de los desafíos jurídicos. Utilizamos el análisis sistémico para poner de relieve los factores explicativos de la evolu-ción y de la reestructuración actuales de los instrumentos jurídicos de las relaciones entre la Unión Europea y América-Latina Caribe.